These Lines I Wear Around My Wrists
by Ayien
Summary: 100 drabbles on Yugito Nii, done for fanfic100.
1. Beginnings

A/N: This was done for the LJ community 'fanfic100'. It will most likely be updated sporadically; I'm using this as something to do in between chapters of 'The Nine Broken Mirrors'.

Disclaimer: Everything in here except for OCs belongs to Kishimoto.

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**001. 'Beginnings'.**

The story began, like all stories do, with death.

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The man stood on the rooftops, watching the endless lines of dead shambling towards him, lit in the red glow of the fires around him. They were overwhelming the paltry defenders that stood against the encroaching darkness. Their Raikage was dead, and he saw her body in the lines, black fire burning on her bones as she tore the shinobi, hesitant to attack the spectre of their leader, apart. The blots of torn viscera were dark against the sky as she carved through the defenders like a knife. 

He looked down at the infant in his arms, her pale blue eyes open, staring guilelessly at him, and then up again. The Nekomata loomed over the village, gray skin gleaming in the moonlight like a corpse's, ebony fire lashing out and cooking the concrete, the buildings crumbling as it stepped forward. Twin tails lashed, and more of the dead climbed from their graves, wrenching free of the earth's embrace, joining the carnage.

His fingers shook as he dipped them in ink. The bottom of his stomach had dropped out, and he wanted to vomit, wanted to cry, wanted to turn his back and run from his duty. The baby giggled as the ink smeared across her skin in an Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, a black collar around her neck, waves of ink spiraling out across her shoulders in a parody of wings.

He glanced one more time at the Raikage, hating her, hating her for leaving him to do this, before he set the baby down and braced himself as the Nekomata, sensing its danger, charged.

The road cracked underneath its paws. A blast of foul-smelling breath hit him in the face, jaws snapping at him. He stood alone at the end of the world, and let his fingers come together.

The summoning jutsu was finished. The Death God stood over them both, one hand on his back, the other on the Nekomata's head. He felt very weak, and fell to his knees beside the child, kneecaps cracking on stone. Hammers were pounding at the inside of his head, and he tried to take a breath, cried out as pain lacerated his insides. Fingers hooked in her blanket, dragged her forward. The Nekomata, frozen, glared hatred at him.

The Death God looked the girl- not 'the girl', _Yugito_- over, and met his eyes with unknowable sadness. Sadness that a new god was being created here this night, a God of the Earthbound Dead. He swallowed, dipped his fingers in ink, and finished the Four Symbols Seal.

There was more agony, bright and hot and fierce. The Nekomata crumbled into black chakra tumbling over itself, disappearing into the seal around Yugito's neck.

The world was gone, and he lay sprawled on his back on the rooftop, the Death God coming closer. He swallowed, tears on his cheeks, and forced out- so paltry, these last words-

"I'm so sorry…" Another last breath, words dancing on the wind, "…my daughter."

The end was here, and he mourned that he must leave his child behind to begin a life alone.

Death beckoned, and he took its hand.

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A/N: Review? 


	2. Outsides

**A/N:** Disclaimer and notes are in the first chapter.**  
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**005. 'Outsides'.**

"Here," the medic-nin said, gesturing to the rotting building. A temple to a deity forgotten long ago, it sulked underneath the spreading branches of pine trees, a stagnant river winding around its walls and underneath the bridge they stood on.

"It's far enough outside the village to prevent any assassination attempts?" Kohaku asked, tucking his hands inside the billowing sleeves of his robes.

"Yes, Raikage," the woman said. Kohaku winced mentally at the title, still unfamiliar after a week of hearing it with every breath. '_And I'll hear it every day until I die, I suppose._'

The child was sleeping in the medic-nin's arms, its chubby face scrunched up in something resembling pain, the new seal around its neck still an angry bright red. Kohaku stared at her, lip twitching, his fingers itching to wrap around the child's- no, not a child, anymore, not even _human_- neck and feel the splintering of bones.

"It sleeps well," the woman observed wryly, her face pale and still. She held it with the competence of a nurse, but somehow, the distance between the weapon and her was as obvious as any chasm.

"Yes," he said. "Have we found a wet nurse for it?"

The medic ushered him into the shrine. The foyer was a mockery of its old grandeur; aged wood creaked underneath their feet, dust thick on every surface. "No," she said, opening a shoji screen with her foot. The screen rattled as it moved in the railings, and Kohaku followed the woman down the narrow hallway.

Faint afternoon light filtered in from the courtyard. The air was still and silent, and old masks glared down from the walls. "We can feed her formula," she continued, directing him into a tiny room at the back of the shrine.

"Here. It's far enough away from the rest of the shrine that whatever caretakers you appoint won't have to interact with her regularly, but it also has one of the few locking doors." The room was barely eight feet square, and windowless. Kohaku glanced at where the crib had already been moved into the corner. '_Ironic how much it resembles a cage._' Although, in truth, that was what it was: a cage for their new weapon, now slumbering in the woman's arms, unaware of its pathetic fate:

To live outside the village for fear of assassination.

To live outside the embrace of family because of what it had become.

To live outside the entire human race, unwanted, alone, because of what it was.

He wondered if the weapon's father, his brother, had wanted this for his child, but squashed the thought firmly. The man was dead, a sacrifice upon the altar of death, and all that remained of him was his offspring, the one who walked in the valley of the shadow of death.

"This will work," he said, turning on his heel and gazing out through the open doorway into the barren courtyard. Footprints still traced over the sand, and dead flowers trailed over the flowerbeds. A scummy pond bubbled in one corner, thick and green and foul, while a leafless tree, white and bare, jutted against the specter of living foliage outside.

A place of death in the midst of life. He smiled, his chest aching with sorrow for his village, for his brother, who had condemned his child to this.

"Leave her there. The caretaker will be here shortly," he said, and left the shrine, passing by old hallways, carpeted with dust, old paintings peeling off the walls, old swords and pottery and relics that no one had cared enough to take.

The squad of ANBU detailed to guard the shrine saluted as he passed, the medic-nin trailing in his footsteps. He could hear her sterilizing her hands.

As the gates to the shrine closed behind them with a thunderous noise, the weapon within locked outside of life, outside of history, outside of love, he flinched, and steeled himself against what he had done and what he would do.

The medic-nin was sobbing softly to herself, no tears left in her, as she scrubbed at her hands with steel wool, lacerating her skin into shreds. Kohaku said nothing: in the aftermath of the Nekomata, of loved ones' bodies clawing from the earth and walking once more, everyone was insane in their own ways.

The weapon began to wail.

One of the guards clapped his hands over his ears and hunched against the scathing indictment of its voice.

Kohaku marched ahead with dry eyes and a dead heart, and did not hear her cries.

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A/N: Please review with any comments or criticism you have. 


	3. Family

**024. 'Family'.**

Kumiko tugged at the woolen neck of her ANBU shirt, sweat beading at her neck and rolling down her back. '_Great, a second set of blacks that needs to be washed. Just what I needed._' She reached up and resettled her hawk mask, leaning back against the trunk of the tree and gulping water from her flask.

The job wasn't all that exciting, really. The most excitement she had so far was when a old man whose son had died at the Nekomata's hands tried to infiltrate the compound. He got over the wall before one of the other ANBU killed him. But in all honesty, she couldn't complain.

Guarding the temple was easy, compared to the constant border patrols the other ANBU squads were running in an attempt to stave off attacks from the other countries. The tales of Kumo's weakness against the Nekomata had leaped the borders scarcely a week ago, and there were rumblings of war from the south.

She looked down, hands occupied with sharpening her nin-wire to a razor edge, just in time to see three of the caretakers- one woman, two men, their genders identifiable by their strides- step into the courtyard of the temple, the patterns of the sand destroyed by their feet.

The caretakers were anonymous; only the Raikage knew their names. Even their ages were unknown, and their faces? The caretakers were swathed in black robes, their faces hidden behind veils that concealed their expressions. She snorted. '_Getting anything out of them is like trying to stop the lightning._'

The veils served a useful purpose, though. The girl- Kumiko was an anomaly among the villagers of Kumo by even thinking of the weapon as having a gender, much less a name- would be unable to bond with any of them, growing up without attachments, without family.

A needed attribute for the unstoppable machine the Raikage intended her to become.

'_Here she comes._' The last of the four caretakers descended the steps into the courtyard, holding the girl in her arms. The girl was awake, her eyes- Kumiko blinked at the slanted, pale blue eyes, an unaccountable feeling of _wrongness_ settling over her- flickering back and forth. The caretaker holding her flowed silently across the courtyard to join the others, the four veiled shinobi standing underneath the bone-white branches of the dead cherry tree, the child in their midst feared and hated perhaps more than anything else in the world.

Their silence, their mechanical movements, their unceasing uniformity reminded her eerily of monks, sworn to the service of their god.

Except monks didn't hate their god.

The girl had already become eerily quiet, compared to the happy, grinning infant she had seen scarcely a week ago, as if she understood already that no one cared, that no one loved her, that she had nothing and no one that could be called 'family'.

One of the caretakers muttered something to the one holding the child. The woman holding the girl nodded, holding the girl as far from her as she could without dropping her. The last word of the man's sentence was easily audible, carried by the breeze:

"Filth."

No, Kumiko realized, suddenly exhausted by the enormity of the tragedy that was the child, by her powerlessness to do anything-

'_Did you know this was her fate?_' She thought to the spirit of her ANBU captain, the child's father. She swallowed. Yes. He had known. He had known, and he had sacrificed himself and his child for Kumo anyway.

'_We didn't deserve it. We never will._'

"Filth," the man said louder, voice glass-shard-sharp with hatred.

No. There was nothing here like family.

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A/N: Review, please? 


	4. Years

**010. 'Years'.**

Kumiko watched as the first year passed.

Caretakers drifted in black robes through the empty rooms of the temple, ghosts in daylight, their bare feet making soft susurrations on the floors. They came when the sun rose over the horizon, fed the girl, changed her diaper, and carried her through the halls, often leaving her to lie alone under the dead branches of the cherry tree.

The child was silent through the days, wide blue eyes already full of an unnatural consideration. Silence reigned throughout the temple, the only sound the soft 'swish' of the caretakers' robes and feet, the muffled trickle of the moat around the temple. The caretakers would feed her one more time and put her back in her crib.

When the sun set, the caretakers hurried from the temple, closing and barring the door behind them, shadows chasing them as they swept like ravens down the road and into the faraway lights of Kumo.

No one stayed after dark, for that was when-

Kumiko saw it every night, but the creeping dread was never any less strong, never less painful.

Black fire crawled across the floors like creatures scuttling across the floors of silent seas, voices- shrill and hoarse and deep and high all mixed in one- whispering to each other, filling the silence.

When Kumiko listened hard enough, she could hear her dead captain's voice in the flames.

And then, as the fire slipped across the white sand courtyard, wreathing the dead tree in inky outlines, the sounds of claws ticking on wooden floors came to her, and a shape, black and shifting like mercury on glass, appeared behind the screens, shadows playing on the rice paper. White eyes glowed luminescent in the darkness.

The stars were blotted out, the only light in the world those two burning circles of radiance. Two tails drifted back and forth like willows in a storm, and the shadows of hands, of bones dripping flesh, splayed out across the closed doors.

Yugito- or the Nekomata, she wasn't sure which- roamed the halls every night as the ANBU around the temple shivered and rubbed their hands together to destroy the sudden chill. Some rocked back and forth, hands pressed to their ears to blot out the voices of the dead. A few cried tears that froze as soon as they hit the ground.

Kumiko did neither, only watched as the demon paced back and forth, caged by the girl's heart beating inside its fiery body. She watched, burning the black tree and the white eyes and the ragged scraps of flesh on bone into her memory, a testament to what they had done.

'_You'll grow up to be a tool, alive only because no one's managed to kill you yet_,' she thought to the girl inside the beast, '_and everyone will hate you even when you save them. And you'll spend the rest of your years walking the line between being a human weapon and blowing your own brains out._'

Every night, the Nekomata walked in silence, and Kumiko watched until the day came, when the demon faded from view under the pale light of dawn, and the girl lying inside her crib opened too-old eyes.

On Kumiko's days off, she woke screaming and drenched to the bone in a cold sweat as visions of burning eyes and burning trees and burning bodies ran a dizzy race through her head, the guilt clawing a home for itself inside her heart.

Yugito's birthday came, and no one remembered it.


	5. Triangle

**042. 'Triangle'.**

Masuru stood behind the Raikage as two of the sentries opened the heavy outer gates, the wooden doors groaning like someone dying. The Raikage, dressed in his formal robes, stepped over the threshold and nodded to one of the caretakers.

"It is an honor to have you here," the caretaker said, muffled beneath the cloth of his black veil as he bowed obsequiously. The Raikage waved the greeting off impatiently, glancing around the foyer. It was completely bare, devoid of any signs of habitation. The pale light of the winter afternoon streamed in through the rice-paper screens, illuminating the piles of dust heaped in the corners.

"Where is it?"

"Right this way," the caretaker said, ushering the Raikage down the hallway. Masuru glanced around, thankful that his ANBU mask hid his interest. The temple where the weapon lived had gained a sort of semi-mythical status, like a house that the neighborhood children believed to contain a witch, as no one ever went inside. The caretakers came out every night, but since no one knew who they were, details on the temple or the project were scarce. No one knew anything about the weapon, either: if it was a boy or a girl, how old it was, what plans the Raikage had for it.

The procession- caretaker, Raikage, and the two bodyguards- passed rooms with crumbling wooden frames, broken pottery and ceremonial weaponry scattered across the floors, cast-off remnants of the monks who had once lived there, worshipping their forgotten god- Jashin had been its name.

The caretaker was chattering away, informing the Raikage about how much the weapon ate, how it spent its days (making drawings in the courtyard sand seemed to be a common theme), how it talked (rarely), and whether it had bonded to anyone.

Apparently the weapon hadn't- although if the disgust in the caretaker's voice was any indication, the caretakers didn't particularly want to engage in any bonding. '_Wow,_' Masuru thought as he stepped down into the courtyard, looking around.

White sand stretched from wall to wall, drawings scattered everywhere. A pond was in the corner, the sluggish water black, the gold-and-white shapes of koi flickering through the gloom and the lacy shadows of the dead tree's branches. Everything was neat as a pin, an air of quiet routine pervading the air. Masuru shifted uncomfortably, aware that he was an invader in something he didn't understand.

A deadly silence filled the courtyard as the Raikage stilled, his fingers curling as the newcomers caught sight of the weapon. The hairs rose on the back of Masuru's neck.

The weapon was a girl- well, that answered the question of gender, at least. She was crouched on the other side of the koi pond, her fingers, crooked into claws, resting on the surface of the water. Her blonde hair was short, barely brushing her earlobes, and her eyes- Masuru blinked, resisted the urge to move closer- were a bright, pure blue, a blue that most people would kill for.

She was dressed in black, blending into the dark rocks on the lip of the pool. Utterly still, utterly calm, her posture reminded Masuru of a cat's on the hunt. Masuru shook his head, reminded once more of the beast that dwelled inside the girl. He couldn't afford to forget that, not for a moment; he could never let himself be lulled into complacency by the weapon's seeming harmlessness.

There was a splash, water droplets arcing through the air, sparkling like diamonds, the girl's hand slashing through the water like a knife, surfacing with a turtle. She held it up, gazed into its reptilian eyes with her own blue, blue ones, before letting it plop back down into the pond.

"Yugito," the caretaker said sharply, "come here. The Raikage wants to see you." The girl- Yugito, and it seemed ridiculous that the weapon that was going to save their country had a _name_- looked up, her eyes pinning them in place, before she rose from her crouch with eerie, liquid grace. No child as young as her could move like that- children like her were supposed to run and play and fall down and skin their knees. But she wasn't a child. She was their weapon.

Yugito flowed across the courtyard, barely disturbing the sand patterns, stopping before the Raikage and gazing up at him. The Raikage stared down at her: creator and creation, weapon and wielder.

"I have something for you," the Raikage said after a long moment, obvious discomfort seething in his voice. Yugito tilted her head, blonde hair shimmering white-silver in the light, before she spoke,

"Really?" Her voice was the quiet rasp of someone unused to speech, carrying an undercurrent of sorrow, of death rattles in the throat. The Raikage nodded, fished something out of his billowing sleeves.

A kunai case gleamed in the light. Yugito took it in thin hands and undid the clasp, flipping the top open. Five kunai, shined mirror-bright, sparkled, throwing dots of light around the courtyard like stars. Yugito picked one out, balanced it on the tip of her finger- they were quality weapons, used by ANBU, feather-light and perfectly balanced, except these kunai were heavy with the weight of expectation, of symbolism- and stared at it, her eyes tracing the triangular blade, the keen edges, the potential humming in the shard of metal.

Masuru watched her, his mouth dry with fear, his hands clammy with cold sweat. The girl was only four, hardly a threat- and yet every cell in his body was screaming for him to flee.

Yugito's eyes moved over the kunai, and Masuru wondered what horrors she saw in the blade.

"I understand what you want," Yugito said, placing the kunai back in its case.

"You do?" the Raikage asked. Yugito looked up, met the Raikage's grave, lined gaze. Masuru blinked. They looked terribly alike, at that moment, like father and daughter or uncle and niece. Yugito smiled. It was bitter and cold as the winter winds, the smile of someone who loved no one and was loved by no one.

"Yes."

Masuru didn't understand the transaction that had just occurred, but he knew this-

It was something that would haunt all of Kumo forever.


	6. School

**088. 'School'.**

Yugito had a picture book. She didn't know where it had come from- it had simply appeared one day in her room without windows, like her clothes, books, and scrolls had- and she didn't care. The book was too important to lose because she asked questions. She had a set of blocks once, but the people in the veils took it away when she asked where it came from.

It was the story of a family, of a boy and a girl and a mother and a father and a dog, and she devoured every word, every messy watercolor painting, like a starving person. And the family lived together, happy, eating meals together and fishing together and always smiling.

She picked up a mirror and stared as she pulled the corners of her mouth back, glancing at the pictures. It didn't look right, and she huffed quietly in frustration, rearranging her mouth again to make it look like the happy people in the book.

There was a noise outside, and she shoved the mirror underneath her rickety bed guiltily. The people in the veils had come early today, because today was important. The man in the blue robes had visited the day before, and he had given her a kunai set and said that she was going to go to school with the other children.

Yugito flipped her book to another page. The boy and the girl were getting ready to go to school, and her fingers traced the words as she mouthed them in the dim silence.

_Mother prepares a bento box for the children. Bento boxes are full of food. Does your mother make you a bento? Father gives them backpacks. Do you have a backpack?_

She frowned, her fingers clenching into a fist, the paper crumpling underneath her hand.

"Sorry," she whispered to the book- her precious book, where everything was happy- regretfully, smoothing the paper out, sliding the book back into the shelf.

She didn't have a bento box, or a mother to make one. She didn't even know what a mother was. And she didn't have a backpack; she didn't have anything to put in one anyway, even if she did get a backpack from one of the people in the veils. The locks in the door came undone, and she stood, her bare feet curling on the cold concrete.

Her stomach growled, and she took a step forward to get her plate of sticky rice and cold beans from one of the people in the veils, but-

She didn't know the person standing in the doorway, and shock rippled through her like a wave as she dove for the kunai set, grabbing one hastily and turning, teeth bared.

The person's hands were up. They weren't going to attack her. She relaxed, glared suspiciously at the person with the mask on. The mask was a bird, one with a big beak. '_Hawk. They talked about them in the book about… pray-dah-tors, I think._'

"Whoa, there," the person- a woman- said, her voice filled with something Yugito didn't recognize. Not fear- she had plenty of experience with that- and not hate- she knew that one, too.

"I'm here to take you to school," the woman said, her dark eyes bright behind the mask as she knelt, gazing into Yugito's eyes. "The caretakers didn't want to deal with it," she made a short motion, a flapping of the hand, "but who needs them, right? Anyway, the Raikage sent me. So, you ready to go?"

Yugito stared, her mouth open, the words dead in her throat. This woman wasn't like anyone she'd ever met before. She was short and skinny and had wire coiled at her hip and she wore a hawk mask and she didn't have hate or fear in her voice.

This wasn't anything like what happened in the book when the boy and girl got ready to go to school.

She didn't recognize her own voice- pitiful and small and _weak_- as she said,

"Can I have a bento box?"

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**A/N:** Feedback is adored. 


	7. Children

**028. 'Children'.**

Kumiko stood at the entrance to the temple, watching Yugito gather up the rest of her kunai and place them in her belt, precisely spaced apart, shined to a mirror-bright finish. Yugito had stumbled back as soon as she mentioned the bento box, going pale before hurrying past her into the courtyard where a kunai target was set up.

She had watched Yugito set up the target yesterday, struggling to hold the heavy sandbag, and ached to help, to jump down from the trees and grin at Yugito and hold it up while Yugito tied the knots. But she couldn't. And the fact that Yugito hadn't even glanced at the caretakers, hadn't even thought of asking for help, spoke volumes.

Yesterday, Yugito had spent the entire day in front of the target, hurling kunai after kunai. She was calm, and cold, and utterly methodical about it. When she missed, she simply picked the kunai back up, paced back and forth while figuring out what went wrong, and tried again.

She was nothing like a child.

"Ready?" she asked. Yugito glanced up, nodded, and glided across the sand without disturbing a single grain to Kumiko's side. Kumiko turned and unlocked the gate, swinging it open and stepping through. Yugito followed, her pale eyes darting up and down and around, absorbing everything she saw.

The trees were changing into brilliant red and orange and gold, the sky a clear, deep blue. Yugito walked in silence beside her, her muteness reminding Kumiko of the nights, when the Nekomata prowled the temple grounds.

"Are you excited about going to school?" she asked, looking down. Yugito met her gaze with eyes as blank and flat as polished glass, her brow furrowing.

"Yes," she said, before looking away, staring at the squirrels that chased each other through the branches. "What are those?"

Kumiko followed her pointing finger. "Oh, those things? Those are squirrels. They eat nuts and run out in the streets and bang on my mom's kitchen window to irritate the dog. Why, you never seen one before?"

"No," Yugito said, before pointing at something else. Kumiko looked, saw the horse standing by the fence contently munching on hay, and explained the horse, too.

When they passed by, the animal reared, white eyes rolling, ironclad hooves striking the fence and buckling the wood, its shrill scream ringing through the cold fall air. Yugito jerked, and yet didn't cry, didn't reach for Kumiko's pant leg like her little brother might have done.

'_The horse must sense the Nekomata._' Unsettled once more, Kumiko glanced down, saw the thick black waves of ink peeking out from the neck of the too-big shirt, closed her eyes and shuddered.

Yugito asked another question, and then another, and with each question about innocuous things, things that all children should know, Kumiko's heart broke a little bit more.

"What is a dog?"

"What are those things on the trees called?"

"What are the white things in the sky?"

They finally reached the tiny gate set into the high walls around Kumo, a gate just built scarcely a month ago. A gate that only Yugito and her caretakers would use.

"Okay," she knelt, showed Yugito the lock, "take the key- here's your copy- and stick it in the keyhole- not hard- and turn it. Good job!" The door swung open, and she led Yugito through, turning to close it behind her.

They were standing in the backyard of the Academy, and children- even her brother, Kensuke- were running madly through the front yard, screaming, laughing, playing, making mud pies and splashing in the puddles of last night's rain.

But Yugito stood by her, silent, her face pale and pinched, her kunai gleaming in her belt, her fingers already developing the calluses of the shinobi.

Kumiko looked at her, the child who had never been a child, and mourned.

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**A/N:** Reviews are loved and fed tiramisu. 


	8. Strangers

**025. 'Strangers'.**

Yugito stared after the woman in black as she disappeared up into the trees with a wink, promising to return when school was over. Something- grief at the sudden loss of the only person who was nice to her- howled inside her, clawed its way into her throat, escaped as a muffled moan.

"Okay, children! Line up by the door, please!" A tall man called out over the noise, the chaotic mass of strangers stopping their rowdy games and scurrying over, jostling and shoving as they got into line. The children were loud, much louder than she ever was, and their clothes were colorful: reds and blues and greens like the birds in her book, nothing like the drab black that was all she had to wear.

She glanced down at her clothes, picked at a stray thread morosely, imagining herself as a crow. People didn't like crows, they thought of them as thieves, nasty creatures to throw rocks at. No one had thrown rocks at her, but the people in veils had threatened to, once or twice. '_Come back, please,_' she thought to the trees, '_I don't want to talk to them- I don't want to see them look angry at me- I just want to go home._'

No one came.

She swallowed, tightened her fingers around her kunai in her belt, lifted her chin, and marched up to the line, finding a place in the back. The girl in front, her dark hair in two pigtails, turned and smiled, gap-toothed, only to squeak and turn away as the teacher swooped down.

"Izumi! What do you think you're _doing_?"

"B-being nice," Izumi stuttered. Yugito watched the spectacle, wide-eyed, shrinking as the teacher turned his stormy gaze to her.

"Don't be 'nice' to her, any of you. Is that understood?"

Silence and a thousand staring eyes.

"I _said, _is that understood?!"

Slowly, as water trickling through cracks in stone, the whispers of 'yes' began to filter through. Yugito met the teacher's eyes as his lips curled in a triumphant smile, wishing- how she wished- that she could _hurt_ him, could make him feel like she was feeling.

The other children all turned away, and Yugito was left once again a stranger.


	9. Friends

**021. 'Friends.'**

Yugito hated school.

She hated the teacher who wouldn't let her answer the questions on the parts of the body. She hated the other teacher who always tried to stab her with a kunai when he was showing them how to use it. She hated the children who laughed at her, or called her 'Crow', or pulled at her hair.

Sometimes when she got angry, and glared at them, she could feel something- hot and heavy and _raging_- roar inside her, her fingers aching as if invisible claws were growing out the end.

She didn't know what they saw in her eyes when she glared, but they always- every single one of them, even the _teachers, _who shouldn't have- flinched, turned away, stinking of fear.

Mostly, she hated it because she had no friends.

The only good part of school was the walk to and from it, over bumpy roads with leaves falling, with Kumiko at her side, tall and skinny and always ready to answer every question.

Kumiko was the only person she knew who didn't smell like fear.

She asked Kumiko one day if that meant that they were friends.

Kumiko glanced down at her, her eyes gleaming from the slits in the hawk mask.

"We've always been friends. And don't worry, you'll make some friends at school." Kumiko's eyes glinted in the shadows, and Yugito could hear a smile in her voice.

"I've got a plan."


	10. Winter

**061. 'Winter.'**

Snow was falling inside the courtyard, over the black koi pond glazed with ice, as Kumiko padded into the temple, strapping her coiled nin-wire to her belt with fumbling fingers, the winter cold slowing her reflexes.

Glaciers gleamed pale-white like stars at the tops of the black crags in the distance, their radiance muted by the gray, flat sky. Ravens crouched on the branches of the dead tree, coveting the fish in the pond.

She bowed to the caretakers as they left, feeling their veiled gazes slide over her, suspicious. Thank God for the ANBU mask: it saved her having to conceal her smile at the idea of her plan for Yugito.

She rapped on the door to Yugito's room, stepping back as the thick metal slab swung outwards, Yugito blinking owlishly up at her.

"Hey there."

"Hello," Yugito said, before turning and sliding into her worn black jacket and stomping her feet into patched boots. '_Black doesn't suit her at all._' With her pale coloring, she should have been wearing light blues or greens, not dulled black that sucked what little color she had out of her and made her look like some washed-out drawing, devoid of life.

But then it did make her appear intimidating, did teach conformity, and Kumiko wouldn't put it past the Raikage to have planned her wardrobe to do exactly that.

She didn't know how many people were really involved in planning the growth of Kumo's weapon of war, but she had the sick feeling that it was rather a lot.

Kumiko propped the door open with her foot as Yugito left the windowless room before letting it swing shut, turning on her heel to follow Yugito past empty rooms full of the dust of ages, past broken crockery and rusted swords, past the lives that had once been lived here.

"Yesterday," Yugito said slowly as the outer gates closed behind them, "you said… you had an idea?"

"Yeah!" Kumiko said, stuffing her gloved hands in her pockets as snowflakes drifted around them, "I do. I have a little brother named Kensuke."

Yugito twisted to stare up at her, brow furrowed. "He's in my class at school." The last word practically dripped hatred. But then Yugito's disdain for the Academy was very well-documented in all of the reports that had been made since she started her education. "He's good with seals," she added, sniffling, her nose cherry-red in the cold.

"He'd better be," Kumiko muttered, her face kept warm by her mask, "considering all the times he made me read him that stupid book about them."

They went over the first hill, past the pastures of Kumo's warhorses, the spindly branches of leafless trees casting patterns of lacy shadows on the hardpacked road. "Anyway," Kumiko went on, "he's been having trouble with his kunai, and I told him to ask you about them, since you're so good."

It was annoying, having to be so careful about how she worded this: if she said that she'd basically ordered Kensuke to talk to her, then Yugito would get offended. But then again, adding praise into it made Yugito much more tractable.

It was terrible how far she was willing to go for praise, for acknowledgement.

Terrible and sad and a little bit frightening, all at once.

She knew that that, too, had been planned.

And she hated herself for using it.

"I'll help him, then," Yugito said, glancing up at the walls of Kumo above, her key to the gate glittering pewter around her thin wrist.

"Great! I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

"I hope so," her charge muttered, opening the gate to the Academy yard.

"Trust me. He will." She reached out and ruffled Yugito's hair with a gloved hand before springing up into the treetops, leaving the little girl she loved to face another day like all the rest.

But hopefully today would be the beginning of something new.

Hopefully today Yugito would find a way to be more than a girl as unfeeling as winter, more than a weapon made to save them all at the expense of everything good.

Hopefully.


End file.
